Wis. senators weigh in on deal to avoid government shutdown

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate reached a deal on Wednesday, October 16th to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.

What do Wisconsin's senators think of the deal? It shouldn't be a surprise that Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin have starkly different views of the agreement.

The agreement would fund the government through January 15th and extends the debt ceiling until February 7th. The deal also stipulates that House and Senate negotiators work on a long-term fix for the nation's budget policies.

Now that the prolonged standoff is over, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin says she's hopeful Washington can return to normal.

"We want to stop seeing governance from crisis to crisis, and I might add, manufactured crisis to manufactured political crisis. We have to be able to negotiate over things like the budget resolution.," said Sen. Baldwin.

Sen. Johnson says the last three weeks should send a message about Washington to the people of Wisconsin.

"Believe what your eyes and ears are telling you about the federal government.  It is dysfunctional, it's broken,  it's inefficient, it's ineffective so ask yourself a very simple question: Is the federal government an entity you really want to grow?  Do you want its control over your life to increase?  Do you want the government to take over your health care system?  I think that's a bad idea," said Sen. Johnson.

The standoff started with that question -- and Tea Party Republicans demanding to defund the national health care law, in exchange for opening the government and increasing the country's borrowing authority.

But over the last 16 days, those demands decreased -- and the deal means almost no concessions to Republican demands.